Has any one had any experience taking professional video equipment into Africa and traveling in Africa with it? We are to go in June the company providing the equipment said there can be trouble if the host country thinks there is a commercial venture in progress. They also suggested that wireless microphones might be a problem. Any experience you might have had will be appreciated.
Doyle

I took a pretty good bit of equiptment into zim two years ago and had no problems on that side my problems were with TSA going through all those wires and tripods with a fine tooth comb, in the x-ray the carbon fiber tripod and all my extraneous cables looked like a bomb. after a while it was cleared up no big deal. In zim i was just another tourist nobody cared.

wireless mikes are no problem, just make sure you have lots of spare batteries and spare mikes we had one go down because one guy took his jacket off, without taking his mike off and ripped the wires out of the jack, yep no spare.

The hard part is if you are going to a really remote location is making sure you have enough juice in your batteries, solar chargers work well and making arrangements with camp staff to keep the generators on until your equiptment is charged.jj

Our news crews use wireless mics every day. They are a wonder and a curse. When they work they are great, and a damnable POS when they don't work.

Now I know this sounds strange, but some countries allocate different frequencies for items like mics, cell phones, and microwave transmissions.

I doubt that this is the case, just be aware that the wireless has a limited range. I'd hope that photog was recording dual channels one wireless and on camera mic. If one goes you got the other.

Tanzania has a $10,000 fee (I think) for commercial filming.

Just make sure you have your story right and keep to it if you are doing a private film.

In the end some sort of "accomodation" would be a lot cheaper than $10G anyway.

Ridiculous fee seeing they do nothing in service in return.

I took a crew into RSA last summer to do filming for the Mens Channel (dish network). Top quality equipment went off without a hitch. Took power adapters for their outlets.